Political Games - Where the fuck’s the reset button?

I would like to apologize for a mistake I had in my article.

100000 “excess” deaths is the “conservative” estimate.

Here’s the full story.

The 15000 number still stands as the lowest, but it only lists REPORTED Iraqi deaths.

Iraq Body Count

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For the past year, President Bush and his supporters have declared several times that “America and the world are safer.� They are trying to convince the world that their leadership has led to a safer, more peaceful world. Their leadership is not strictly limited to their global “War on Terror�, but includes the rest of their foreign policy actions, notably the war on Iraq. But words are cheap; it is easy to declare that we are safer, but is that really the case? Is America, and the world, safer because of the Bush Administration?
It is easy to forget that the Bush Presidency began in January, 2001, and not on September 11, 2001. The Bush Administration, in fact, made several key decisions during this time period. The first item on President Bush’s foreign agenda was the creation of the National Missile Defense shield to protect the United States from missile attack. The issue was so important to Mr. Bush that there were 101 administration statements made during the first 8 months on the topic. Despite major scientific doubts about the feasability and accuracy of such a system and public policy makers who declared there was no need for a missile defense system, the Bush Administration forged ahead with the idea, pulling out of the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty with Russia in order to do it. Both of these actions antagonized key American allies, and the missile shield has an estimated price tag exceeding $115 billion.
Of course, before the Bush Administration took power, there was very little need for a missile shield. The missile shield was politicians’ denial that the Cold War had ended. The major Communist power most likely to threaten us, North Korea, was without the missile technology and nuclear capacity to strike the United States, thanks in large part to the efforts of the United States and South Korea to be more diplomatic with the North. This all changed under President Bush. Instead of continuing the pursuit of the “sunshine� policy of South Korea, Bush instead antagonized North Korea by boasting he would not be “fooled� by their regime. Members of the administration also hinted at the possibility, also in early 2001, of a forced regime change in the country. By early 2002, the rhetoric was taken to the next level when President Bush named North Korea as part of the “axis of evil.� Faced with a hostile U.S. government, the North Koreans began pursuing nuclear weapons as a means to prevent the United States from attacking them. Thanks to Mr. Bush’s failure at diplomacy, North Korea now has several nuclear weapons, and is building missiles to be aimed at potential threats; namely, the United States.
After our nation was attacked by a group of anti-American extremists, the U.S. struck back by hitting one of their major centers of training and operation, Afghanistan. The military performed beautifully, and it seemed the U.S. was meting out justice. In early 2002, with the Taliban just removed and the noose tightening around the remnants of al-Qaeda, the President suddenly veered onto a tangent and towards Iraq. As we now know, there were no deadly weapons of mass destruction, no programs to obtain these weapons, or even a coherent plan to begin trying to get the equipment. There were no drone planes with the capacity to strike the United States. There were no plans to attack the United States. There were no ties to al-Qaeda, or any other terrorist groups. The only reason to invade Iraq was that it was ruled by a vicious and cruel dictator. Other nations who are ruled by cruel and vicious rulers include Saudi Arabia and Pakistan, our “allies� in the war on terrorism. Because of the invasion of Iraq, nearly 1100 Americans have died, and dozens of people of other nationalities have died. Somewhere between 15000 and 80000 Iraqi civilians, as in non-combatants, have died as a result of the invasion and occupation. The 15000 is based purely on the deaths reported in the American media, while the upper-end estimate is based on a collection of personal reports from the towns and countryside. The numbers injured and homeless are unknown, but likely run into the hundreds of thousands. None of these estimates include the insurgency or initial Iraqi military deaths.
“Mission accomplishedâ€? and an end of “major combat operationsâ€? were declared in May 2003 by President Bush. Currently, many of the provinces cannot be entered by American troops, and the only area safe from attack is the heavily-guarded “Green Zoneâ€? in central Baghdad. As the Washington Post’s Rajiv Chandrasekaran reported on September 25th, he “used to jump in [his] car and drive out… to write about attacks,â€? but he “no longerâ€? can because the “roads are too dangerous, the threat of kidnapping too great.â€? Under this backdrop of daily bloodshed and kidnappings, there is an attempt to have something resembling an election. Despite the fact that large numbers of people will be ineligible to register and others won’t be able to, this is somehow referred to as “freedom on the march.â€? The current ruler of Iraq, Iyad Allawi, not only worked as an assassin for the Hussein government, but is also reported to have “pulled a pistol and executed six suspected terroristsâ€? while they were in a prison yard. His name might not be Saddam Hussein, but using such brutal practices shows that his legacy lives on.
All of the Bush’s foreign policy actions stem from the ideas of a group called “Project for a New American Century,� or PNAC. PNAC’s leadership includes Vice President Dick Cheney and Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz, among others. In September of 2000 the group wrote a paper which called for the invasion, occupation of, and creation of military bases on a list of countries, including (but not limited to) Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Iran, and North Korea. Every major Bush foreign policy decision has aided these proposals and pushed them one step closer to “victory.� A government watchdog group has created a website (http://www.pnac.info/) to “investigate, analyze, and expose� PNAC. The only way to fully understand the Bush Administration’s foreign policy actions is to understand what PNAC stands for, and why another four years of “staying the course� will embroil the United States in even more nations, and even more wars.

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